Exposing a Fundamental Compromise

Some respected Christian leaders, famous for defending the fundamentals of the faith against compromise, were guilty of their own compromise

For thousands of years Christians have faced the danger of being deceived by
Satan (2 Corinthians 11:3). Sometimes in the process of defending the Christian
faith, respected Christian leaders have unknowingly compromised with error.

Surprising examples include founders of modern fundamentalism.

The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

At the turn of the twentieth century, a wave of liberal theology was sweeping
through churches worldwide. To fight back, a group of stalwart Christians wrote
what are widely considered the founding documents of modern fundamentalism.
From 1910 to 1915 they published ninety articles in twelve volumes, collectively
known as The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. The aim was to
defend the most basic and foundational doctrines of biblical Christianity.

In total, three million copies of the volumes were eventually distributed free
of charge to church leaders throughout the English-speaking world.

The authors were selected by a committee of some of the most doctrinally sound
men of the day under a succession of godly editors. The third and final editor,
R. A. Torrey, was a close associate of evangelist D. L. Moody and the second
president of what became Moody Bible Institute. The evangelical authors hailed
from America, Canada, and Great Britain and represented diverse denominations—Baptists,
Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists.

Most articles were sound and are still well worth reading, but the six articles
on the early chapters of Genesis and science must be read with care. Two of
these articles helpfully contend that evolution is contrary to Scripture.1 But
two other articles that oppose atheistic evolution and human evolution do not
clearly oppose the compromise idea of theistic (God-directed) evolution. Worse
yet, three of the six clearly accept the claim of evolutionary geologists about
history over millions of years. None of the six articles takes a stand for the
clear biblical teaching of a literal six-day creation a few thousand years ago.

Scottish Theologian James Orr

Scottish theologian James Orr (1844–1913) provides helpful articles about Christ’s
virgin birth and other doctrines. At first glance, his article on “The Early
Narratives of Genesis” appears sound, too. He contends that Genesis 1 and 2
are not contradictory creation accounts, and he asserts that the Flood was a
historical event. But he does not explicitly discuss the age of the earth, and
he is not clear whether the Flood was global. Hinting at his compromise views,
he asserts, “The Bible does not teach modern science” (p. 81).2

In a later article on “Science and Christian Faith,” his compromise is revealed.
He tells us that geology has “expanded our ideas of the vastness and marvel
of the Creator’s operations through the aeons of time” and if we accept the
creation days as “aeonic days—vast cosmic periods, . . . then the last trace
of apparent conflict disappears” (pp. 133–134). He obviously felt he could say
this because he mistakenly asserted that the order of events in Genesis 1 fit
“the broad facts even of geological succession.”3

Canadian Theologian Dyson Hague

The prominent Canadian theologian, Dyson Hague (1857–1935), rightly asserts
in his article, “The Doctrinal Value of the First Chapters of Genesis,” that
Genesis is foundational to the rest of the Bible. He insists on the “historicity
of Genesis and its Mosaic authorship” (p. 102) and that Genesis “has no doctrinal
value if it is not authoritative” (pp. 103). He affirms a literal Adam and the
historical fall of Adam into sin as the foundation of the Bible’s teaching on
redemption.

But Hague unintentionally starts to undermine even his own affirmation of the
truth and authority of Genesis when he says that “Genesis is admittedly not
a statement of scientific history” (p. 107).

Like Orr, he mistakenly asserts that the order of events in Genesis and the
old-earth geological theory are wonderfully compatible because he ignores some
of the details of Genesis 1 and leaves the creation of stars out of the picture.
He concludes that we should “take our stand with” Georges Cuvier, J. William
Dawson, and James Dana, who were all old-earth proponents. Dana, a geologist
who leaned toward theistic evolution, taught that Genesis is “in perfect accord
with known science” (p. 114).

American Theologian George Frederick Wright

An American Congregationalist theologian, George Frederick Wright (1838–1921)
contributed an article that boldly defends Moses’s authorship of the first five
books of the Bible. But then his article on “The Passing of Evolution” startles
the reader with these words, “The Bible, indeed, teaches a system of evolution”
and explains his view that the orderly progress of the days of creation in Genesis
1 (“whatever period ‘day’ may signify”) is “from lower to higher forms of matter
and life” (p. 613).

He later clarifies, however, that by “evolution” and “progress” he does not
mean what Darwinists mean. Noting that Genesis records the creation of plants
and animals “after their kind,” he rejects the notion of microbes-to-man evolution,
chemical evolution of life from non-living matter, and the evolution of man
from nonhumans. He even affirms that Adam and Eve “came into existence as the
Bible represents, by the special creation of a single pair” (p. 623).

Sadly, none of these men discussed the relevant
scriptures. For them “geology had spoken” and the Bible was silent on the matter.

Wright concludes that evolution is not proven despite the efforts of atheistic
and deistic evolutionists, and those efforts cannot banish the idea that God
designed the creation. But he confusingly makes a vague comment about “prehistoric
man” and “higher animals associated with him in later geological ages” (p. 623).
When discussing the contemporary geologists’ estimate of 350 million years and
Lord Kelvin’s estimate of 30 million years for the age of the earth, Wright
appears to be content with the latter age but offers no comments about the Bible’s
teaching on the subject.

Sadly, none of these articles really discusses any of the Scriptures in Genesis
relevant to the question of the earth’s age or the extent and character of Noah’s
Flood. Yet all our efforts to find truth and understand the world must begin
with Scripture. For these men “geology had spoken” and the Bible was silent
on the matter—a remarkable perspective in a book intent on defending the truth
of the Bible.

Lead Editor R. A. Torrey

None of this confusion and compromise is surprising when we learn that Torrey
(1856–1928), one of the lead editors of The Fundamentals, studied geology
under the theistic evolutionist and uniformitarian James Dwight Dana. Torrey
accepted earth history over millions of years, reinterpreted the days of creation
as long ages, and believed there was a great gap of time between Genesis 1:1
and 1:2. Although he rejected human evolution, he did believe in the existence
of pre-Adamite humans.4

Sadly, The Fundamentals’ influence on the teaching of Christian colleges
and seminaries—which produced the pastors, missionaries, theologians, and college
presidents of the next generation—is impossible to overstate.

The Fundamentals were published on the heels of the immensely influential
Scofield Reference Bible (1909), which also led the church astray with
its brief marginal note on Genesis 1:2. Scofield wrote, “The first creative
act refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the geologic ages.
. . . Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science
with the Genesis cosmogony remains.”

But these early twentieth-century evangelical men are part of a long line of
otherwise godly, Bible-believing Christian leaders and scholars who have mistakenly
believed that geologists have proven that the earth is millions of years old.

The compromise started in the early nineteenth century, with men like Thomas
Chalmers.5 It has continued increasingly into the present, through the influence
of countless evangelical scholars and leaders, including Charles Spurgeon, Charles
Hodge, B. B. Warfield, William Jennings Bryan, James Montgomery Boice, Gleason
Archer, Bill Bright, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Billy
Graham, Bruce Waltke, and Tim Keller, some of whom have even embraced theistic
evolution.6

Ironically, James Orr’s article on “Science and the Christian Faith” rebukes
past Christians for distrusting geology because they feared that its pronouncements
on earth history conflicted with Scripture. Yet his words describe precisely
what he and other fundamentalists were doing: “It is an unhappy illustration
of how the best of men can at times err in matters which they imperfectly understand,
or where their prejudices and traditional ideas are affected” (p. 126).

The theological inconsistencies of these respected leaders warn us about the
ever-present danger of trusting men and movements rather than the clear revelation
of Scripture. All men have feet of clay (in fact, God says we are all 100% clay—Isaiah
64:8). That’s why believers must remain vigilant, never wavering from their
firm stand on God’s Word, no matter how unpopular that stand may be.

None of us, including any particular scholar (no matter how respected he is),
or even the majority of scholars or Christians, can be the final authority for
determining truth. God’s Word must be the authority. And it clearly teaches
creation in six literal days about six thousand years ago and a global catastrophic
Flood at the time of Noah. We must graciously but uncompromisingly contend for
the literal historical truth of Genesis 1–11, which is absolutely fundamental
to all other doctrines in the Bible.

While it is discouraging to see how the error of a few can impact so many millions,
the voice of even a few faithful Christians can make just as great an impact.
It starts with each of us, and those we directly influence—our children, our
church friends, and any other sincere seeker of truth that God brings across
our path. By God’s grace, we can make a difference!

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Footnotes

All page references are from R. A. Torrey, ed., The Fundamentals (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Kregel, 1990), a reprint of 68 of the 90 articles.

Orr was not well
informed on this matter. The order of creation in Genesis 1 did not match the
order that creatures appeared in the geological record. This was the case in
the early nineteenth century (when the idea of millions of years of history
was developed) and in Orr’s day, and it is still the case today. See Terry Mortenson,
“Evolution vs. Creation: the Order of Events Matters!” http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0404order.asp, April 4, 2006.

See Terry Mortenson’s 2-part, 2-hour
DVD lecture, “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and Christian Compromise in the
Early Nineteenth Century” (Petersburg, Kentucky: Answers in Genesis, 2003).
A one-hour version is “Millions of Years: Where Did the Idea Come From?” (Petersburg,
Kentucky: Answers in Genesis, 2005). Mortenson’s PhD research behind these lectures
is presented in The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on
Geology—Before Darwin (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 2004).

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.